KingsOfKings
𝔻𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕞 𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕟𝕥
Roc Marciano Is Ready For His Flowers
The legendary Long Island rapper on new album 'Marciology' and why he belongs on your top 10 list.
www.stereogum.com
After shifting the sound of underground rap, the 46-year-old innovator believes he belongs on your top 10 list
For someone renowned for delivering raps in a crackly purr, it feels kind of strange to hear Hempstead, Long Island’s Roc Marciano even slightly raise his voice.
“Yeah, for sure [I get frustrated]!” the 46-year-old says with uncharacteristic irritation when asked what it feels like to see his name left off those “top 10 best rappers” lists that always go viral on Twitter. “I feel like they’re stupid. A lot of people don’t know what the fukk they’re talking about.”
On his new sunny-Sunday-afternoon-smooth, Blaxploitation-channeling song “Goyard God,” from March’s typically inventive new album Marciology, this cult artist spits the words: “Cowards ain’t want to give me my flowers/ It’s childish.” The self-proclaimed “De Niro with a tan” intelligently contrasts this track’s laid-back sonics by rapping with a war-ready wisdom that sits somewhere between quasi-strategist Sun Tzu and folklore pimp Iceberg Slim.
And, just when things threaten to get too personal, Roc (real name Rahkeim Calief Meyer) remembers not to take himself too seriously, scaling back to unleash an X-rated belly laugh about a sexual encounter that left a kitchen counter “wet like a pound of salmon.” It’s the perfect crystallization of who Roc Marciano is as a songwriter: someone who doesn’t know if they want to be profound and talk about willing things into existence or to crack a dirty joke about sullying the curtains at the Waldorf Hotel. Someone whose music sounds like Dr. Octagon and Life After Death just had a baby.
I ask if the triumphant yet disappointed tone of this excellent new song, and all the talk of flowers, reflect how underrated Roc feels when it comes to the current critical landscape. His answer tells you everything you need to know. Roc believes it is time he was mentioned alongside the greatest, dead or alive. “The culture has been infiltrated and so many people have been welcomed in without being properly vetted,” he explains, slightly rankled.
“They have free reign to speak about other people’s art. They might be a failed musician… and they’re just taking out all their frustrations! You can’t trust that everybody who is critiquing music is coming from a genuine place.” He pauses. “The funniest part about it is the people ranked highly on the lists of the best emcees, they all think that I’m the hottest rapper! I’ve influenced most of the people on those lists: Not even just with the music, but the fashion too. A lot of people jack my music and my style, you know what I’m saying?”
Roc Marciano Is Ready For His Flowers
The legendary Long Island rapper on new album 'Marciology' and why he belongs on your top 10 list.
www.stereogum.com
